A Light Touch
by KittyKatz
Summary: Miroku takes Inuyasha to get a massage


**A light touch**

~Kitty

* * *

This was a very, very bad idea. Inuyasha's entire body leaned back, fighting himself as he was led into the dark, candle lit space. The flickering, eerie, yellow light glowed from strange, pink rocks lining the hallway and a synthetic, rustling sound, water he presumed, emanated from the speakers in the walls.

"Relax, Inuyasha," Miroku's light, carefree voice said, "It's going to be great!"

The young woman leading them gestured toward a dark room.

"A mister Miroku?"

"That's me!" His so called friend answered, eagerly entering the stuffy space, abandoning him. Their guide then turned to him.

"Don't mind him!" Miroku chirped, "He's grumpy by nature."

"Ah… Mister… Inuyasha," the young woman said, obviously struggling to search for words, "You'll be in this room…"

She gestured to a room in the corner, and Inuyasha felt a sense of foreboding wash over him. The air in the space was thick with a strange, stifling fragrance. Something about this entire experience was riling up his instincts, telling him to run. His agitation must have shown in his body language for the young woman seemed flighty and nervous, hasilty instructing him to remove all his clothing and lay face down on the covered bed in the center.

_All his clothing?!_

Inuyasha gulped, staring at the closed door after his guide had fled. Surely the woman didn't mean '_all'_, did she? He stood frozen beside the bed, a buzzing, frantic disconnect between his brain and his muscles that had him stiff and tense, snapping to attention when a knock echoed from the door.

"Mister Inuyasha?" a new voice called, "May I come in?"

"Gimme a minute!" he answered gruffly, suddenly springing into action. Without thinking, he managed to crawl under the thin sheets, laying face down on the strange circular pillow. Muscles taught and almost trembling, he swallowed hard before daring to speak.

"Uh… yeah, ready."

The door opened smoothly and he felt a new presence enter. With his face fully engulfed by the strange pillow, he couldn't even use his peripheral vision to identify the stranger. The suffocating scent that sat thick and heavy in the room hampered his ability to investigate the newcomer and it was only by her voice that he could work out her gender.

"Dog demon?" she said, the quirk of a smile in her voice, "Then let me turn off these diffusers."

He heard a flick somewhere in the corner and the sound of a fan turning on. He almost instantly felt better, sensing the air lift and his nose unstuffing from the horrendous floral scent that had saturated the space.

"There, that's better."

With his head quickly clearing thanks to the clearing air, Inuyasha took a deep whiff into his lungs, mentally sifting through what information he could glean from her scent. Before he could make much headway in that regard, she spoke again.

"Do you have any sensitive areas or areas you'd like me to spend more time on?"

There was a lengthy pause while Inuyasha managed to work out that she was waiting for him to speak. For lack of knowing what an appropriate response was, he grunted something unintelligible, hoping she'd just get on with it and then set him free.

"Hmm," she murmured, soft and low in her throat, "I'll just go with standard procedure. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make this more comfortable for you."

'_How 'bout letting me outa here?!'_

He couldn't remember a time when he'd been more tense. Every muscle in his body was tight and contracted and his claws were creating ten neat punctures at the edges of the bed. Even so, when her fingers made first contact with the skin on his shoulders, he nearly lifted off the table in a full bodied flinch.

"Just breathe," her voice said to him, only a hint of a smile to belie her amusement, "Inhale…"

He clenched his jaw, hyper aware of where her fingertips were lightly lingering over his shoulder blades. Finally, he managed to command his lungs to expand and he took a great deep breath.

"Good," she said, "Now let it all out."

It came out in stutters at first, uncomfortable and uncertain. But as the gush of air built momentum, some of the strain left with it. Her hands remained where they were, a gentle, but insistent pressure on his back.

"Take a deep breath," she said, the encouragement in her voice making this second breath easier. The clean air tumbled into his lungs smoothly, and he found the sensation energizing.

"And let it out," she said, sighing herself as she, too, relaxed. As his chest compressed, she leaned down on him, slowly and confidently sliding her hands down his back, on either side of his spine. The initial movement startled him, but as he continued to exhale, as her hands pressed the breath out, he found himself accepting the foreign pressure, curiously analyzing the sensation of her palms and fingers against the tight, hard muscles of his back.

"You carry around a lot of tension," her voice mused above him, "And I'm guessing you've never had a massage before."

He wanted to grunt, to respond somehow, but it just didn't feel appropriate. How does one converse with a stranger running her hands up and down one's bare naked back?

His masseuse straightened, pressing fingertips into his back in reverse as they ran back up towards his neck. Repeating this motion, Inuyasha was able to appreciate the feeling of his muscles being caressed by the gentle pressure. It was a bit of a revelation, that the tension in those two bands of muscles had been aching for release and he found the sensation quite positive. Her hands ran down his back again, this time lingering at the bones of his hips, where they met his spine. It was hard to tell how she managed to disperse her small hands against his lower back but the firm, pinpoints pressing into those two bones, such that he could feel his spine being lengthened by her force, released a new tension he hadn't realized rested there and he inhaled deeply into his lungs without bring prompted.

And then her hands came back up, pushing into his back and ultimately finding the taut, knotted muscles of his neck.

The groan his throat released was unlike any sound he'd ever made before and he immediately tensed with surprise and embarrassment, even while his skin relished the feel of her fingers finding and working at the tightness.

"Relax," she said, her voice soothing and smooth, "Inhale, exhale."

Touch had never been a pleasurable experience for him. The closest emotional response he'd ever felt toward it was neutral, and quite often, it was negative. Negative, and painful. But now as the woman's fingers moved slowly up and down the length of one side of his neck, he suddenly found himself savoring it. And even as she began to bear down her weight over the many, many knots, and a corresponding pain erupted from the pressure, he vaguely realized just how much he was enjoying it. The woman alternated between hard and soft in her touch and the pattern became hypnotic as his entire consciousness started to focus solely on her touch and her voice.

"Breathe," she said, "Just breathe."

Was he falling? He had the distinct sensation of letting go as his mind slowly began to drift, flowing whimsically from one thought to the next. How soothing everything was, from her touch to her voice to her scent. How warm he felt, was the table heated? Perhaps, instead of falling, something was rising, rising up toward him and enveloping him. A nest. A refuge. Had he been in any other state of consciousness, he'd probably panic over how easily he was entrusting his body to this stranger. But in the moment, it was hardly within his abilities to even hold a single train of thought.

There was a moment, vague and hazy in his memory, when the woman seemed to prod at his shoulder, urging him to turn over. His mind rose briefly, tasked with the effort of moving a body that suddenly seemed disconnected from its brain. And then he descended again, lead into the depths by a pair of hands that gently but insistently began to press down on his shoulders, lengthening first one side of his neck, then the other and the straining, aching tension, like a bowstring held taught, would be released as she pressed in with her fingers into the muscles there, releasing a surge of heady endorphins that brought him back to a dark, blank, euphoria.

Some time later, ten minutes? And hour? He gradually felt himself waking to the sound of an amused voice calling to him. His eyes cracked open and fluttered as they remembered how to function and he came aware of a light touch on his shoulder.

"Welcome back," she said, "I hope you enjoyed your first massage?"

He had to blink for several more seconds, trying to process what had happened. In every other situation he was sure he'd feel somehow violated, regardless of the fact that he'd willingly offered up his body on the table. Ordinarily, the surrender of his mind would have sparked horror within him. But strangely, the first thing he consciously felt as he groaned and struggled to sit upright, was a sense of loss when her fingers lifted off his skin now that he'd awakened. He was still forcing his eyes to focus when he turned to respond to her question with a grunt.

There was laughter in her eyes when she smiled at him, clearly humored by his reaction. But there was warmth, too.

"Take your time," she said, "I'll be outside with some water."

Somehow it was devastatingly empty when she left the room. Inuyasha huffed to himself as the rest of his personality returned. 'So that's a massage,' he thought to himself, hopping around as he hastily struggled into his clothes. He burst through the door, feeling like he needed to escape in order to find an isolated place to ponder through this experience.

"Ah," her voice said from beside him, "You sure are quick."

By now, he'd recovered enough to take a good look at her and instantly his eyes began committing her to memory. There was something almost surreal about her and his protective instincts finally began to sound their warning bells. Gruffly, he accepted the cup of water and made his escape, locating Miroku and paying the receptionist as quickly as he physically could.

"Would you like to leave a tip for your masseuse?" The lady at the front desk asked, absently offering him a small envelope.

"Sure," he said quickly, blinding stuffing the little thing and rushing out the door. Miroku followed him, eyes sparkling with amusement.

"Inuyasha," he chided, "That's almost half cost of the massage! Was she _that_ good?"

Inuyasha ignored Miroku, mind preoccupied and currently only capable of two things. He leapt into the air, desperately racing for the small corner of the world he called his own. And while he made his way to that little crammed apartment, the voice in his mind whispered the name written on the tipping envelope.

'Kagome.'

* * *

A/N: omg i want a massage so much right now... being an adult is hard... too much work...

anyways, wrote this mainly because i really wanna get a massage but settled for getting Inuyasha one instead -.-;;;


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